Cyrille Regis

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
Missing Lambo

Missing Lambo

Well-Known Member
Nov 29, 2011
2,688
3,243
113
Chester
Just occasionally players come along who transcend club loyalties and football fans simply like them. Our Matt was of course such a player. Cyrille Regis was also one. Cyrille terrified me as a Saints fan whoever he was playing for when I saw him. But my favourite accolade today came from Big Ron who described him as a "better bloke than he was a player". A friend of mine worked with disaffected kids in the Midlands when Cyrille was in his pomp. She rang and asked if he could turn up and say a few words to the kids at her drop in centre. He didn't turn up, say hello and piss off. He came and stayed. And he turned up whenever he could. The term "role model" is over-used, but for many young black kids in the Midlands he was just that.

So sad news, and I apologise if someone has put this on another thread, but I felt the guy deserved one of his own.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Romsey_Saint, holierthanthou, Archers Road and 9 others
I am a bit too young to really remember Regis in his prime but I do remember having Regis in my Wycombe Wanderers squad in the old Championship Manager and he was awesome.

I remember my dad telling me I had a gem of a player there, and he was right. I gained promotion in my first season mostly thanks to his goals!

Great player who did so much for black players and black people in general. So young as well. RIP Cyrille, taken too young!
 
  • Like
Reactions: HarryTipper and Saints_Alive
I can well recall Big Ron's WBA visiting The Dell in their yellow and green stripes and tonking Saints 3-0. I was about 13 at the time and was in a state of shock as it was the first time I ever saw Southampton torn about by the visitors. Cunningham and Regis were superb that day. Sad to realise that both players died too young.

A lot has been written about the influence of Cunningham and Regis on black footballers and supporters but I think they also had a huge impact on firing the imagination of my contemporaries as well. I was perhaps too young to notice the shocking racism they faced at that time but as an avid reader of "Shoot", Cunningham, Batson and Regis they were players I both respected and feared whenever we came up against them.

RIP - Cyril
 
  • Like
Reactions: Romsey_Saint, Archers Road, thereisonlyoneno7 and 1 other person
Missing Lambo said:
Just occasionally players come along who transcend club loyalties and football fans simply like them. Our Matt was of course such a player. Cyrille Regis was also one. Cyrille terrified me as a Saints fan whoever he was playing for when I saw him. But my favourite accolade today came from Big Ron who described him as a "better bloke than he was a player". A friend of mine worked with disaffected kids in the Midlands when Cyrille was in his pomp. She rang and asked if he could turn up and say a few words to the kids at her drop in centre. He didn't turn up, say hello and piss off. He came and stayed. And he turned up whenever he could. The term "role model" is over-used, but for many young black kids in the Midlands he was just that.

So sad news, and I apologise if someone has put this on another thread, but I felt the guy deserved one of his own.
Click to expand...

I think he was a role model for anyone anywhere. Thoroughly decent bloke. I also liked the fact he cane via non-League... Harlow Town or Hendon Town, I think.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Missing Lambo
Ian Thumwood said:
I can well recall Big Ron's WBA visiting The Dell in their yellow and green stripes and tonking Saints 3-0. I was about 13 at the time and was in a state of shock as it was the first time I ever saw Southampton torn about by the visitors. Cunningham and Regis were superb that day. Sad to realise that both players died too young.

A lot has been written about the influence of Cunningham and Regis on black footballers and supporters but I think they also had a huge impact on firing the imagination of my contemporaries as well. I was perhaps too young to notice the shocking racism they faced at that time but as an avid reader of "Shoot", Cunningham, Batson and Regis they were players I both respected and feared whenever we came up against them.

RIP - Cyril
Click to expand...

Absolutely Ian. I always had a soft spot for WBA back then because of him, Batson and Laurie Cunningham.
 
Always had a soft spot for that West Brom side. At the time I wouldn’t have even realised it had anything to do with race. Now, I don’t know. But always liked Cyril. RIP.
 
The odd thing about the WBA team with Cyril Regis / Lawrie Cunningham etc in was that they were the only team I ever got anywhere near completing in my Panini sticker collection. As a consequence, the names of the players that Ron Atkinson assembled are probably more familiar to me than any other club apart from Saints and perhaps Liverpool around that time. That season they were devastating and it was a shock for me to see that turn Southampton over so comprehensively. I think it was when we still had Phil Bowyer up front but I might be mistaken.

The one thing that I miss about football from when I was a kid was is that there was not the wall-to-wall TV coverage and therefore it always felt that it was genuinely something to have seen a player who had either appeared in Shoot or in those sticker books. I suppose because we had Danny Wallace, it never struck as being strange for clubs to field Black players and I never appreciated at the time just how much the coverage in magazines like Shoot just to make this normal. At one point Viv Anderson was a regular columnist. I don't think it ever struck me that Regis, Batson and Cunningham were any different from anyone else other than the fact that they had the potential to destroy Saints.

It is amazing to think that WBA are now synonymous with dull , defensive football whereas the team under the stewardship of Atkinson had the reputation as one of the most entertaining sides of those times.
 
Ian Thumwood said:
The odd thing about the WBA team with Cyril Regis / Lawrie Cunningham etc in was that they were the only team I ever got anywhere near completing in my Panini sticker collection. As a consequence, the names of the players that Ron Atkinson assembled are probably more familiar to me than any other club apart from Saints and perhaps Liverpool around that time. That season they were devastating and it was a shock for me to see that turn Southampton over so comprehensively. I think it was when we still had Phil Bowyer up front but I might be mistaken.

The one thing that I miss about football from when I was a kid was is that there was not the wall-to-wall TV coverage and therefore it always felt that it was genuinely something to have seen a player who had either appeared in Shoot or in those sticker books. I suppose because we had Danny Wallace, it never struck as being strange for clubs to field Black players and I never appreciated at the time just how much the coverage in magazines like Shoot just to make this normal. At one point Viv Anderson was a regular columnist. I don't think it ever struck me that Regis, Batson and Cunningham were any different from anyone else other than the fact that they had the potential to destroy Saints.

It is amazing to think that WBA are now synonymous with dull , defensive football whereas the team under the stewardship of Atkinson had the reputation as one of the most entertaining sides of those times.
Click to expand...


I loved Shoot!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back